The Ride

In early December I picked up my Flying Pigeon from the factory in Tianjin. I owe a huge amount of thanks to Mr Wang, the retired export manager of the company and his colleagues who helped prepare the bike. I am also very grateful to Antonio who runs www.flying-pigeon.es and brought Mr Wang and I together.

The day after, with no preparation, I cycled the Pigeon 140km home to Beijing. I managed the first 50 km in under four hours but the remaining 90km took a tortuous nine and a half hours. It was undoubtedly the hardest physical challenge I have endured since my final law exam, which had the grave misfortune of following the 2005 Champions League Final.